beyond exaptation: the modules and metaphors program

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Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program Laurence Fiddick James Cook University

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Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program. Laurence Fiddick James Cook University. The adaptivist program vs. the adaptationist program. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Beyond exaptation:The modules and metaphors program

Laurence FiddickJames Cook University

Page 2: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

The adaptivist program vs. the adaptationist program

Adaptivist program – focused on the reproductive consequences of traits. Traits that increase reproductive success are adaptive and held to be adaptations – the product of natural selection.

Page 3: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

The adaptivist program vs. the adaptationist program

Adaptationist program – focused on mechanisms that are complex and functionally integrated – bear evidence of special-design – which are held to be adaptations.

Page 4: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Different programs, different problems

Adaptivist program – need to be vigilant for traits that currently increase reproductive success but lack the right evolutionary history.

Adaptationist program – need to be vigilant for traits that display evidence of special design, but lack the right evolutionary history.

Page 5: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Exaptations: An adaptivist’s problem

We suggest that such characters, evolved for other usages (or for no function at all), and later “coopted” for their current role, be called exaptations (Gould & Vrba, 1982, p. 6).

Page 6: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Two sources of exaptation

A character, previously shaped by natural selection for a particular function (an adaptation), is coopted for a new use – cooptation.

A character whose origin cannot be ascribed to the direct action of natural selection (a nonaptation), is coopted for a current use – cooptation.

Page 7: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

What Gould & Vrba do NOT say

They do NOT claim that randomly ordered traits cannot be exaptations.

What Gould & Vrba DO say

They DO claim that all exaptations have current utility.

Page 8: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

A completely random, disorganized trait can be an exaptation provided that it increases current reproductive success.

Exaptations: the adaptivist’s headache

Page 9: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

But what causes the adaptationist to lose sleep?

Exadaptations: the adaptationist’s headache

Adaptations that have been largely been coopted for new applications, regardless of whether these new applications increase reproductive success.

Page 10: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Other sources of complexly organized functionality

Cultural evolution?

Intensive learning?

Human artifice?

Page 11: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Exadaptation: How does that work?

Adaptations – have an organized structure embodying a particular mode of operation (a modus operandi) that was designed for a specific set of problems in ancestral environments (a domain of application)

Page 12: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Exadaptation: How does that work?

Evolution through natural selection is a slow process. Accumulated design is slow to change.

Environments can change much faster

Page 13: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Exadaptation: How does that work?

The modus operandi of an adaptation is a reflection of its accumulated design.

An adaptation’s domain of application is in part determined by the environment in which it operates.

Proper vs. actual domains

Page 14: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Exadaptation: How does that work?

With environmental change, the modus operandi of an adaptation can potentially organize a different domain of inputs.

Page 15: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Exadaptations: Do they exist?Possible examples:

Moral disgust (Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 1999)Written language (Pinker, 1994)Law (Fiddick, 2004)Mathematics (Dehaene, 1997)Music (Dissanayake, 2000)Poetry (Miall & Dissanayke, 2003)Race (Gil-White, 2001; Hirschfeld, 1996; Kurzban, Tooby,

& Cosmides, 2001)Religion (Boyer, 1994; Kirkpatrick, 1999)Science (Atran, 1990)

Are these exaptations?

Page 16: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Possibly ... but

No effort to establish that these traits increase current reproductive success.

Every effort made to understand the organization of the phenomenon.

The organization of the phenomenon is traced back in part to prior adaptations.

…. but

Page 17: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

What would be a good example of an exaptation?

Sperm bank donations – fairly high probability that one’s reproductive success will be increased by doing so but clearly an evolutionarily novel behavior.

Page 18: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Music

Poetry

Mathematics

Science

Kinship ClassificationManipulation

Sperm Bank Donations

Recycling Plastic

Watching TV

Increase Reproductive Success?

Yes No

Exaptations

Page 19: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Music

Poetry

Mathematics

Science

Kinship ClassificationManipulation

Sperm Bank Donations

Recycling Plastic

Watching TV

Increase Reproductive Success?Y

esN

o

Com

plex

Fun

ctio

nalit

y?

Yes No

Exaptations

Exadaptations

Page 20: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

A systematic program of research without a name

The modules and metaphors program

Moral disgust (Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 1999)Written language (Pinker, 1994)Law (Fiddick, 2004)Mathematics (Dehaene, 1997)Music (Dissanayake, 2000)Poetry (Miall & Dissanayke, 2003)Race (Gil-White, 2001; Hirschfeld, 1996; Kurzban, Tooby,

& Cosmides, 2001)Religion (Boyer, 1994; Kirkpatrick, 1999)Science (Atran, 1990)

Page 21: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Modules

An evolved faculty of mind that is flexibly, domain-specific.

The proper domain of the mechanism is given by its selective history.

Flexibility is brought about by changes in the mechanism’s environment which affect its actual domain of application, but not its modus operandi

Page 22: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Metaphors

Taking a system of concepts and inferences from a base domain and applying them to a novel target domain.

Evolutionary theory as a scientifically coherent account of base domains.

Evolutionarily novel situations as possible target domains.

Page 23: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

How does the program work?

some practitioners even explicitly note that this is what they are doing – e.g. Gil-White and Kurzban et al. when investigating race

1) Focus on a complexly organized, but evolutionarily novel trait.

2

Page 24: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

How does the program work?

1) Focus on a complexly organized, but evolutionarily novel trait.

2) Characterize the modus operandi of the trait – how is the phenomenon organized?

3) Draw parallels with a plausible adaptation that possesses the same modus operandi.

4) Demonstrate a previously unknown aspect of the novel trait that is known to exist in the evolved trait or vice versa.

Page 25: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

How does the program work?

1) Focus on a complexly organized, but evolutionarily novel trait.

2) Characterize the modus operandi of the trait – how is the phenomenon organized?

3) Draw parallels with a plausible adaptation that possesses the same modus operandi.

4) Demonstrate a previously unknown aspect of the novel trait that is known to exist in the evolved trait or vice versa.

Page 26: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

How does the program work?

1) Focus on a complexly organized, but evolutionarily novel trait.

2) Characterize the modus operandi of the trait – how is the phenomenon organized?

3) Draw parallels with a plausible adaptation that possesses the same modus operandi.

Ideally…4) Demonstrate a previously unknown aspect of

the novel trait that is known to exist in the evolved trait or vice versa.

Page 27: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Is it compatible with evolutionary psychology?

Critics of evolutionary psychology have argued that precisely these sorts of phenomena are incompatible with and raise serious doubts about evolutionary psychology (Mithen, 1996; Chiappe, 2000).

Violates evolutionary psychology’s presumed modularity.

Page 28: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Is it compatible with evolutionary psychology?

Evolutionary psychologists are committed to the study of functional structure.

They assume that functional structure is best explained in evolutionary terms.

Page 29: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Is it compatible with evolutionary psychology?

Evolutionary psychologists are NOT committed to the view that present environments are the same as ancestral environments.

Given that the domain of an adaptation’s application is in part a function of the environment in which it operates, evolutionary psychologists are NOT committed to the view that the actual domain of a module is fixed.

Page 30: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Is it compatible with evolutionary psychology?

Evolutionary psychology is compatible with the possibility that novel environments can alter the actual domain of an adaptation.

Evolutionary psychology is not compatible with the possibility that novel environments can alter the functional organization of an adaptation – in function preserving ways.

Page 31: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

The concept of metaphor, itself, presupposes the preservation of conceptual

and inferential organization from the base domain to the target domain.

Page 32: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

What do evolutionary psychologists have to gain from the program?

1) An alternative account of expertise

2) A defendable boundaries to adaptationist proposals

3) A rich source of data

Page 33: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Face Processing

Page 34: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

A B

Page 35: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

A B

Page 36: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

A B

Page 37: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

A B

Page 38: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Kanwisher, McDermott, & Chun (1997)

Page 39: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Greebles

Page 40: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Gauthier, et al. (1999)

Page 41: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Gauthier, et al. (1999)

Page 42: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

But…

Abacus experts show a bilateral increase in superior frontal sulcus and superior parietal lobule activation in a digit memory task (Tanaka, et al. 2002)

Expert pilots show more frontal and prefrontal activation, less visual and motor activation in an aviation track-following task (Peres, et al. 2000)

Page 43: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

What do evolutionary psychologists have to gain from the program?

1) An alternative account of expertise

2) A defendable boundaries to adaptationist proposals

3) A rich source of data

Page 44: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Social Contract Theory (Cosmides, 1985)

Proposal: humans possess an evolved, “look for cheaters” algorithm

Based on evolutionary theories of reciprocal altruism (Axelrod, 1984; Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981; Trivers, 1971)

Evidence: studies conducted on the Wason selection task

Page 45: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Social Contracts

If you take the benefit, then you must pay the cost

Two types:

Personal exchanges – two parties cooperating for mutual benefit

Social laws – one person granted a benefit on the basis of a societal law

Page 46: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

If you take the benefit, then you must pay the costOnly personal exchanges correspond to the form

of interaction modelled by evolutionary theory

Personal exchanges – two parties cooperating for mutual benefit

Social laws – one person granted a benefit on the basis of a societal law

Page 47: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

1) Amend the evolutionary theory2) Draw a distinction between the proper

domain of the adaptation (personal exchanges) and the actual domain of the adaptation (personal exchanges and social laws).

Social laws as a metaphorical extension of cognitive adaptations for social exchange

Two possibilities

Page 48: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Do NOT claim that novel expressions of the adaptation are part of its evolved function

Page 49: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

What do evolutionary psychologists have to gain from the program?

1) An alternative account of expertise

2) A defendable boundaries to adaptationist proposals

3) A rich source of data

Page 50: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Psychological Experiments

Many psychological experiments used to test adaptationist hypotheses rely upon the application of mental adaptations to evolutionarily novel situations.

Page 51: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Given conflicts of interest between the two sexes, it could be difficult to see the organization of female and male mating psychology in their unconstrained form.

The idealized worlds of romance literature and pornography potentially represent a valuable source of data about the ways that females and males think about mating and sexual relations.

Romance and Pornography

Page 52: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Fin

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Page 57: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Social Contracts vs. Precautions

Reasoning about social contracts and precautions is neurologically dissociable.

e.g., Stone, Cosmides, Tooby, Kroll, & Knight (2002)

Page 58: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Precautions activate pain centers: insula and cingulate cortex

Fiddick, Spampinato, & Grafman (in prep)

Page 59: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Social contracts activate VLPFC and DMPFC regions

Fiddick, Spampinato, & Grafman (in prep)

Page 60: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

But suppose one were to speculate that…

Catholicism is based on a “precautionary” logic.The community is the body of Christ. Sin

constitutes a threat to one’s soul and the body of Christ. Need to take precautionary measures to protect one’s soul and heal any wounds it may suffer.

Protestantism is based on a contractual logic.The community and one’s relation to God are

based on contractual relations placing one in a socially precarious position (“you can be replaced”). Need to establish “deep engagement” with God and members of the community so that one is irreplaceable.

Page 61: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

What about saints?

Catholics venerate saints, Protestants don’t

Specific saints for specific problems

Dysentery? PolycarpInfertility? AgathaKidney disease? Ursus of Ravenna

Page 62: Beyond exaptation: The modules and metaphors program

Perhaps the psychology of hazards is particularistic, whereas the psychology of contracts is not:

Any item of trade can be exchange for any other.